Peshmerga

In an unlikely pairing, a battalion of fearless freedom fighters and a prominent French intellectual go to war together. Peshmerga Kurdish freedom fighters are the only forces who fight man-to-man – or woman-to-man – against IS, and not without success. Bernard-Henri Lévy is an influential philosopher and author who has previously reported on conflicts in Libya and Ukraine. In 2015, he was in Iraqi Kurdistan to find out more about the Peshmerga. Lévy spends six months with them as they travel from south to north towards Mosul. They are always just a few kilometers from the enemy. The journey entails lots of driving across open sandy plains that are often riddled with mines. In abandoned villages they come across the traces left by IS, but sometimes the threat is much more frighteningly immediate. Lévy supplies the explanatory commentary and raises philosophical questions about his illustrious companions. This is both an essay on modern warfare and a tribute to the courage and ideals of the Peshmerga.